Revisiting the first concept of the first year of graduate school.

This is probably only interesting to me, but I finally debunked fully what was bothering me about my diagram about happiness. In a summation of the notes I wrote at 3 in the morning:

The diagram is not in its best form as a token of gratification, but an example of a failure of as a work of art.




I immediately understood something from John Cage's list of Rules:

RULE EIGHT: Don't try to create and analyze at the same time. They're different processes.

Also, the work was a sincere attempt in depicting something that I was interested in, and although the direct route is not always the best, I found out something interesting in the creation of my chart.

Rather than the circles representing different interpretations of where happiness comes from, it is actually describing different facets of being in a good place, or as I titled it "The chart of I'm doing good". Compared to calling a print "Defining Happiness-Meaningfulness" it does reflect how personal of a place this research came from, while at the same time, it can be more universal in a way.

When we are in a good place we are either:
1. Embracing truth and/or nothingness (very existential)
2. Embracing life (based in pleasure and curiosity and challenges)
3. Embracing ourselves (which involves acceptance and giving up on relying on anything external)
4. Embracing responsibility (which I noted has a lot of knowing when to take the good with the bad)

I wouldn't call this an 'answer' to a 'question' I had, but I feel a lot more clear about what I think I was trying to do, and how to even clear up that what I was working on wasn't all for nothing.

Now all I have to do is to prove that I know how to talk about it in an academic way and I'll be ready to figure out how this will figure into doing research for my upcoming dissertation which starts next year! (starts now.)

I talked with fellow MFA student Stephen Murray and he mentioned that sometimes he doesn’t get what I’m doing, I know that a month ago I felt distraught about not knowing what I’m trying to accomplish and then a couple of vacations and dinners later, I feel like I’ve got an artist statement that I like better than most. Fuck you “Doubt”, here goes nuthin:

My work is about being excited to see something take shape and gain momentum. If you sit with something for long enough, let’s say a bit of blue paint, you might create a lovely harmonious relationship with it from a distance. But I don’t care about letting things be. I want to know for myself what it’s properties are; what it looks like when you drop it from a certain height, what it can’t it be mixed with, and I like to get to know what the experts would say, ‘this is what blue paint is meant to do’ and ‘this is what we don’t know’. I have to say all that because I think you’d be disappointed if I just said: “My work is about play.”

Back to this idea of generating momentum, this applies to how I work with paint, clay, light, people, sawdust, inks, expectations, and ideas.

I can be a bit vague when I want to say “I do things with a given material put into a particular circumstance.” But that’s just me trying to be sincere and telling you that I’m not trying to put you on. Essentially, the idea is as old as science. How do we know how anything works if we don’t mess with it and see how it responds to different conditions?

(Here’s a recent example: my mural idea, called Brixels. The year I worked with Dan Marchwinski, I found out that he is a genius at coding. So I asked him make me a website (makebrixels.com) that would allow anyone, kids even, the ability to make a tessellating pattern, and here’s the pinch, to make it fit along the rigid structure of alternating brickwork. This is distinctly different from just working with pixels that form a grid, because bricks overlap. He made the whole site in a couple days or something like that. Once you have that pattern the fun really starts. In Detroit, at least, there are plenty of brick walls that have areas that may have been windows or just knocked out that have been filled in with more brick, but it disjoints the brickwork, and laying down this perfect pattern really brings out the hiccups that were previously invisible. Each time a mural goes up it’s such a great surprise to see what it turns out like in the end when you’ve been so focused the whole time on creating a system of counting bricks to make the process more efficient and more precise. By the time the wall is filled, we can imagine it still visually extending on, and on and on. Also you don’t get to enjoy the mess unless you see how boring it all looks in structured order.)

The magic I find in my work is that what you see is exactly what it is, and I will present materials that people know well enough and I’ll still find a way to make us excited about it. The reality is and will always be that originality is renewable resource and that all it takes is to mix two disciplines that have never been mixed in a certain way and it’s a new frontier. I think that that approach is more powerful than spending my life mastering a single technique, or creating work to represent something else an overextended metaphor or perhaps, not realizing/utilizing what you have right in front of you.

To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure if I do have an overall vision, the kind that makes the viewer understand where they’re going even if they don’t know where they’re coming from. But my disparate bits of work all deal with the substance of things. I tend to pick methods that are cyclical in nature. My work also reflects a knack for being attuned to the mood or the existence of multiple perspectives or the subtle actions and intricate things around me that I believe are just asking to be framed. I’m getting a little bit away from myself again, I don't even know what I mean by 'framed'. If I'd have to describe the resolution of framing something I would have to begin by explaining that the best art work is weird, (and a criticism I have of my own work is that it could always be weirder), but I know that you can start with something weird, and make it work. 

I shouldn’t do it, but I want to have a decent one-liner to explain to tie everything up, what I want to do:

I want to have many opportunities to explore something exciting and to even be forced to explore in different ways.

I just submitted this with a DVD of my work just from this semester.

Table of Contents:

• Experimental Film Class – “Viewing Distance” – Feedback loop video with “An Inconvinient Truth” superimposed into the screen, the folder contains a 2-minute long mockup.



• Interim Show

• “The Speed of Learning” Counter, hand-made book – 5 photographs and two movies, one shows the process of making the work.
• 
  
• “Today” 365 pages, metal – 5 photographs of the work while it was in the show, 5 specific dates in JPG form, the actual PDF itself and some photographs of the process of making the work.













• April 5^th – An example of one of the subversive philosophical statements
• August 5^th – An example of one of the reflections talking about something profound that happens on an ‘everyday’ level
• December 5^th – An example of one of the entries that was inspired by the trip to Morocco, this particular quote written in Arabic by one of my hosts reads along the lines “The secret is not the house, but the owner of the house” which is a statement about speaking with confidence.
• January 5^th – Embedded on this date is another artwork which is an ironic take on the published book “What We Want is Free” which was scanned, uploaded onto the internet and made into a link to be downloaded for free illegally. Title of the work “What We Want is Free”, link to a download of the book “What We Want is Free.”
• May 5^th – An example of one of the statements meant to trigger an action, in this case, that date is my birthday.
  
• Other



• Art inspired by Morocco – Photos of experiments that may be resolved into future artworks, including a remaking of the ceramic tiles found in our hosts’ home in Morocco to be re-made out of cement and installed either in my own home or outdoors. Photo Number 27 is one of many sand sculpture photographs that I found to be very captivating.
• Artwork I helped photograph - Self-explanatory
• Experimenting with composers from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland – I have been in talks with Thom Norman about collaborating to create a new language for both of us to work with, possibly in conjunction with an Opera that he and his friends are working on. I would be providing a visual component. The video included is an experiment where people from the audience would be allowed to grab chips and beers from a shopping cart which is rigged to a mouse that when it moves conducts the musicians that are playing the work. The digital videos are possible programs that will be used for the purpose of triggering a certain way that the musicians will be led.
• Quick Quink Experiments - experiments on Plexiglas, paper, with tape, with cardboard, testing different color and densities with different materials.
  
• Shape and Form Experiments – Some works out of cardboard that I used to try out some ideas I had about different forms that interested me.
• Video for BRIEF – “Silence” is a video of the word drawing being written with water on a metal sieve that disappears when I blow on it, it was created for the assignment that month which was to create a work using a medium we are unfamiliar with under the theme “Calm”, I made this ephemeral work which was then shown in Gabriel Lueng’s one day video exhibition.
  
• Paintings and Prints
• 50 – “Telephone” ink, spraypaint, silkscreen and acrylic paint on acrylic plastic
• 66 – “Nature’s Paranoia” ink, spraypaint, silkscreen and acrylic paint on acrylic plastic
• 67 – “The Upside of Irrationality” Lithograph print, Ink
• 68 – “Who Belongs to Glasgow” Lithograph print, Ink
• 70 – “Predictably Irrational” Lithograph print, Ink
• Paintings as thank you gifts
• 28 - Hassan Filke – Marrakesh
• 53 – Huda Murabit - Tangier
• 54 – Shema – Fez
  
• Proposal for Show at Studio 41 – Self explanatory
  
• Solo Show – Concept Structure Torture Survival Title
• “Drawing Machine inspired by Ross Byers with troubleshooting by Alan Keane” bike tire, cardboard, wood, paper cones, wood dust, vibrating toothbrushes (included are mockups, still images and video documentation) This is a kinetic work that was a metaphor for an art practice that always comes back to itself, I was surprised that the piece even functioned! Also Karla Black stole my sawdust.
• “January 15^th, 2012” 10 minute video. This work was to comment on the positive aspect of ‘community’ within an artist’s practice that involves working with other people and helping each other out. This is actually two works screened side by side. The other video “Night Bus” is taken from the inside of a darkened First bus as I was its only passenger as it went from nearby Glasgow School of Art to where I lived. The countdown is meant to make the viewer believe that the ‘art’ will start soon, when actually it is a piece itself, a journey, this video is 10 minutes long.
• “Prepared for the Moment” 10 minute presentation, re-staged for recording purposes. I recount a past printmaking project and talk about if I thought the project worked or if it didn’t. In the end the fact that I used the prints as fliers for the show worked well and creating a performance out of a miniature artist talk was meant to comment on how artists talk about their work and present it to an audience, ironically, although it is very informational, I am mostly talking about happiness which is coldly referenced but not felt.
• 
  
• “The Art Prize” Settlers of Catan, customized board, chairs, players, money. This was done in the spirit of Fluxus games meeting a sociological experiment. I invited two artists, one a past MFA grad and the other a musician that I am collaborating with, as well as two people from the couchsurfing community in Glasgow. I asked two of the players (Alex who hosted Rachel and I in our first week in Glasgow and Jason Mathis) to teach the other two players (Thom Norman and a stranger who I invited through the couchsurfing website) how to play the game. There was a practice round and I used a computer program to fairly distribute the odds across the board. In the final game, money would be given to the winner (in four equal amounts hidden in four envelopes to suggest that they could either share the winnings or keep it all for themselves) however they would be able to decide on any rules. When they started Jason suggested that it wouldn’t be necessary to use the computer program and they ‘randomized’ the board themselves. I catered to whenever they needed food or drink until the game ended. At one point during the game everyone thought that something may be going on since the winnings were divided up and everyone except for Jason said that they would probably split the winnings. Jason ended up winning and kept the money, but he gave the other players a choice. He said that they could either take the envelope themselves or take one of his comics that he had just finished printing (this was definitely not planned as part of my art piece, but I found it fascinating that not only did he keep the money, but he advertised his own artwork as well). Everyone happily took his artwork (which was valued less than the 5 pounds that was in the envelope) and later talked with each other about the cultural capital that art has and how it swayed their decision not to take the money. My initial intent was to see if the players would internalize the competitive spirit of the game, much I find is similar to how artists are trained to think of the profession as a competitive one as well, even though this is a cultural construction. In the end, the results of this interactive work went far better than I expected.
  
• “Today” 365 pages, plastic holder – Read its description in the ‘Description of Works’ section of the DVD, there are subtle differences between this piece and what I submitted to the Interim show. For one, an entire month was replaced since I had referenced Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies for an entire month. Also I updated it to reflect my travels to Oban as well as Morocco. Also this piece may have worked the best in this environment as it was overlooked easily as it was on display in a domestic space. Each day the calendar was updated by ripping off the past days’ page so that the calendar would function as a real calendar.

Works Cited

Albus, Anita. The art of arts: rediscovering painting. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000. Print.

Ariely, Dan. Predictably irrational: the hidden forces that shape our decisions. New York, NY: Harper, 2008. Print.

Bishop, Claire. Participation. London: Whitechapel ;, 2006. Print.

Bourdieu, Pierre, and Hans Haacke. Free exchange. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1995. Print.

Bruce, Katie, and Victoria Hollows. Towards an engaged gallery: contemporary art and human rights : GoMA's social justice programmes. Glasgow: Culture & Sport Glasgow (Museums), 2007. Print.

BuÃàchler, Pavel. Decadent: public art : contentious term and contested practice. Glasgow: Foulis Press, 1997. Print.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow. S.l.: Harpercollins, 1991. Print.

Deller, Jeremy. Folk archive: contemporary popular art from the UK. London: Book Works, 2005. Print.

Edward, Mary. Who belongs to Glasgow?. Glasgow: Glasgow City Libraries, 1993. Print.

Fletcher, Harrell, Miranda July, Julia Wilson, Laura Lark, and Jacinda Russell. Learning to love you more. Munich: Prestel, 2007. Print.

Gray, Alasdair. Lanark: a life in four books. Edinburgh: Canongate, 2007. Print.

Hooks, Bell. Teaching community: a pedagogy of hope. New York: Routledge, 2003. Print.

How To Draw a Bunny. Dir. John Walter. Perf. Ray Johnson, Christo, Jeanne-Claude, Chuck Close, Frances Beatty, . Palm Pictures LLC, 2002. DVD.

Johnson, Steven. Where good ideas come from: the natural history of innovation. New York: Riverhead Books, 2010. Print.

Mauss, Marcel. The gift: forms and functions of exchange in archaic societies. New York: Norton, 1967. Print.

Merewether, Charles. The archive. London: Whitechapel ;, 2006. Print.

Purves, Ted. What we want is free: generosity and exchange in recent art. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2005. Print.

Radical Culture Research Collective. "A Very Short Critique of Relational Aesthetics." Transform.eipcp.net 1 (2007): n. pag. Correspondence. Web. 29 Nov. 2007.

Ryan, David. Talking painting: dialogues with twelve contemporary abstract painters. London: Routledge, 2002. Print.

Chappell, Duncan. "The Book as Object." Core Research Skills for Postgraduates: Archives and Historical Resources. Glasgow School of Art. Glasgow School of Art Library, Glasgow. 19 Oct. 2011. Lecture.

Davis, Glyn. "The Politics of the Archive." Core Research Skills for Postgraduates: Archives and Historical Resources. Glasgow School of Art. PG Studies Department Offices, Glasgow. 12 Oct. 2011. Lecture.

Tierney, John. "A New Gauge to See What’s Beyond Happiness." New York Times 17 May 2011, New York Edition ed., sec. Findings: D2. Print.

I can't help it, losing track of things is part of my life.

Being in the moment is a double edged sword.
I lose stuff all the time, most people who know me know that this happens to me, but really they have no idea in the sense of how hard I work to counteract this thing that I know about myself.  There are moments when I am furious with how my brain works, but I'm trying to appreciate that this absent-mindedness comes with other ways that I engage in a eccentric and unique way with reality and I also have a sense of awareness and sensitivity that brings about the kinds of ideas that could make for some interesting artwork.

I'm working on convincing myself that being able to keep track of the things that I misplace has nothing to do with not taking 'adulthood' and responsibility seriously (I beat myself up about it enough already) and that although I'll never get used to how hard life seems to be once I lose something I really needed or liked this is just who I am.

Here is a rundown of what is depressing me, I have lost something different every day for a week.

Tuesday May 1st: left iPhone on bus (it was found and returned using the Find My Phone feature)
Wednesday: Missed my alarm for getting to the last class on time (You can't makeup lost time)
Thursday: Missed an induction scheduled for me and one other person (won't be rescheduled for me)
Friday: Forgot my watch for giving a tour (found it later, but after I needed it)
Saturday: Forgot my bag at Ross and Amy's place (Amy returned it to me)
Sunday: Artist tape (still missing)
Monday: Missing the grey cloth I had ordered on the phone (I couldn't tell what I had ordered, but didn't check until it was too late)
Tuesday: My exacto knives (retrieved from where I left them but a day later)
Wednesday: Missed meeting up with Jim, also I left my drill (was handed to me before I realized I had lost it)
Thursday: Jacket with my keys and bus pass inside (someone retrieved it for me)
Friday: My drill bits (found them with other hardware packed away)
Saturday: Phone charger and converter (recently went missing at work)

this month's biggest forgetful moment: left iPhone on bus (it was found and returned)
before that: The cable that would connect the video camera to the computer (still missing)
previous month's big loss: left my SLR and duty-free bag in Edinburgh coming back from Morocco at a T-mobile store (it was retrieved by Rachel)
before that: my warm fuzzy hat (gone)
before that: I left my wallet coming back from London on the bus (returned with all of its money still in it)
before that: this beautiful double thick llama scarf that Rachel had knit for me (gone)

This is going to sound quite absurd and funny to other people, but I'm very serious about my understanding of what I think needs to happen because many other strategies of mine have failed, so this is my current plan of attack for the future:

1. Working hard enough to earn enough money to be able to buy 2 perhaps 3 of the same thing so that it's not so bad if I misplace one of them. (I've done this with cheap sunglasses, and I find myself doing it more and more subconsciously, and surprisingly this works better than everything else to keep from feeling awful when I lose something, I actually feel clever once I realize I've lost it but I can quickly recover.)

2. Work hard enough to afford to pay an assistant who can fill in for the part of my brain that is engrossed in other activities.

I am coming to terms with the notion that some people are innately good at certain activities that it requires little practice for them to become sufficient than what we consider is the 'norm' and that conversely some people are innately not as good and need more practice to become sufficient than what we consider is the 'norm'. This means that I may already work harder than most people to keep track of things, but also I will continue to have to work harder than other people still. This isn't about developing a great work ethic, this is about understanding of my own limits and thinking about what I have control over in order to simply be ok, and at my best moments, happy.

Unfortunately my other options are thus (and they have been so far)

1. Own nothing and do not take on any responsibilities of any real importance in order to avoid conflicts with other people.

2. Beat myself up mentally until a nervous breakdown forces me into assisted care where my life is highly managed by hospital staff.

3. Practice remembering things by chanting the name of the object I have to keep track of and it's location throughout the day like a mantra.

6 - 6 - 6

Current practice:

6 current parts of my arts practice

15% Fluxus - "do it yourself" aesthetic and impulsiveness

15% Generative art (creating problems to solve) - We make to become not to acquire, make a brick not a wall, creating conditions in which critical thinking will occur.

15% "Creativity comes from trust, trust your instincts and never hope more than you work", believing that working hard enough towards being happy will produce results and to prevent depression and foster leverage for more fun activities

15% "Idealistic Pessimist", philosopher side, questioning everything on one side and daydreaming on the other

15% Inspired by design as seen through the lens of Buckminister Fuller and other things like Space Collective, beauty + sharing + innovation + going against what we think we know

15% Being a part of a community, work is finished when I know where it will go, sometimes the work is within another person and the collaboration deems that the work is already ready to be finished because it has a home. (caring about what others think as well as caring about how to be a better partner)

10% ???

6 types of artist-for-life outcomes, that to me are still not ideal:

Working hard now in order to secure working hard in the future, this is picked up by institutional bodies as a kind of consistency or outcome that they can count on. Future looks like: Galleries-museums that may ask the artist to reproduce 'their' work in slightly varying contexts.

Reading and writing a lot about interesting connections that one finds as a part of their art practice, the 'making' of 'things' ends up being dependent on the quality of the thoughts. Future looks like: Academia where their job dictates that the quality of their work must also include a form of prestige to be fulfilled.

Doesn't find the need to take themselves too seriously and is working on multiple projects at the same time while taking on boring jobs that can pay for really fun hobbies, travel and making complex 'things' with friends. Future looks like: Hackerspaces and one-off projects that don't really belong in any art shows

Works well with coordinating a lot of important events that relate back to ones art practice and has a professional side that they understand well, art is made few and far between but their importance is widely felt within their community: Activist-Organizer that realizes their ideas are best suited to be put into the world by any means possible, even if that means that they're not the ones that are making the work.

As far as useful technical skills are concerned they are experts. They also land really good jobs as well as know how to have the best fun while in school. 

Future looks like: Technician for other artists to the point where their work is few and far between their full schedules.

Conceptually based maker but extremely poor, has the best ideas but no movement towards figuring out how to make a living. Never compromises on the quality of the work, but this is also means that everything costs a lot of money: Future looks like: Artists whose work relies on competitive rare grants and other sources of funding.

6 good problems I would like to have:

Struggling to repay all the generosity that has bestowed upon me in my life, feeling like one lucky fella that can't repay my friends...

Too many exciting collaborations that would all be interesting, however choices must be made and I can only pick one at a time...

Too much time spent laughing, playing music, seeing performances/lectures/workshops and enjoying life that I must work harder to schedule in time to work on the work…

Not sure what to do with this very open ended well-paid commission/having less choices and therefore working more efficiently...

This art piece is really beautiful as I'm making it even though it's fairly difficult to make and it's really really slow going, but it just keeps getting better and better, I don't know when to stop…

Having to adjust to when I am working with a completely new set of tools, and situations because I've abandoned what has worked for me in the past, every 6 years changing up my practice...

actually, I would like to come up with a longer list of good problems to have…